5 key decisions for President Obama

President Barack Obama’s 2008 victory may have been built on inspiration, but his 2012 campaign was a billion-dollar triumph of perspiration and electoral engineering likely to leave a larger political footprint on the American political landscape.

Necessity — in Obama’s case, the need to mobilize the ’08 base without ’08’s Obama-mania — spurred invention and a sense that planning, not serendipity, would win the day.

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Second term preview

Dangers of a second term

Obama’s Chicago-based team created the most sophisticated voter targeting and identification operation in history, a turnout effort that trounced Mitt Romney’s ground game, and a merciless, months-long campaign to portray Romney as hopelessly out of touch with the interests of working voters in battleground states.

“They were like a football coaching staff that puts their team in a position to win, no matter what the opposition does,” said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau, who heads the American Bridge 21st Century super PAC. “They got a four-year head start on infrastructure and strategy. It was amazing. If other incumbents follow their plan, I can’t see how you’d get another one-term president.”

A top Obama adviser added, “2008 was great and magical, but by 2012 we had four, five years to learn from our mistakes.”

Here are five decisions, most of them made months — even years — before the votes were cast, that led to Obama’s decisive Electoral College victory on Tuesday.

1. Investing millions in voter ID and field organizing from 2009 to 2012

On Tuesday, political reporters and many in the Romney campaign were peering into a black box of confusing anecdotes and data from swing states. In a room in Obama’s Chicago headquarters, the president’s “analytics” team calmly delivered packets of data to the campaign’s boiler room predicting outcomes in battleground states that proved, in many cases, to be 0.1-to-0.5 percentage points off the actual votes cast.

That gave Chicago a critical edge. Like generals with good intelligence, Obama campaign officials could move resources quickly around the battlefield — like the late deployment of volunteers to critical Cuyahoga County in Ohio.

And it never would have been in place without years of planning by Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina, White House adviser David Plouffe, field impresarios Mitch Stewart and Jeremy Bird, and deputy campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon.

Obama’s campaign probably spent $200 million to $250 million — a quarter of every dollar collected — to create a state-of-the-art voting profiling operation that allowed it to more accurately assess the electorate than standard polling.

That effort was linked to a vast network of state-level Obama organizers who knew their turf like a good cop knows the beat.

Messina told POLITICO the signature moment of the campaign came when he ran into a middle-aged woman during a visit to a Columbus, Ohio, field office six weeks before Election Day.

“I know everybody in my neighborhood — the ones that will always vote, the ones who don’t — and what it takes to get them to vote,” the woman, a committed Obama volunteer since 2007, told him. She added, with a chuckle: “They just shipped in a Romney staffer a couple of weeks ago. … Who do you think is going to win around here?”

The America I thought I loved is long gone. She was a hardworking, rugged individualist that could overcome any obstacle that came her way. She has morphed into something completely unrecognizable. She is now weak, petty, and in need of being cared for from the cradle to the grave. I hope the residents of the America that love handouts are proud of themselves for reelecting the usurper in chief. The patriots of what little America is left will continue to fight politically in any way we can to preserve whatever is left of a once glorious and prosperous America.

President Obama sends a messge to all of the legislators letting them know everyone needs to work together (bipartisanship). The bipartisanship will stick until someone disagrees with him, then all bets are off...

I already see liberals in this thread highfiving each other and celebrating America's demise. I've never seen an entity do so much for so many to be hated to so bad. Romney gave an excellent eulogy for America last night. Her memory will live though, in the hearts and minds of surviving patriots.

The America I thought I loved is long gone. She was a hardworking, rugged individualist that could overcome any obstacle that came her way. She has morphed into something completely unrecognizable. She is now weak, petty, and in need of being cared for from the cradle to the grave. I hope the residents of the America that love handouts are proud of themselves for reelecting the usurper in chief. The patriots of what little America is left will continue to fight politically in any way we can to preserve whatever is left of a once glorious and prosperous America.

Awwwwwwwwwwww blow it out yer ear Clem

Weak?

Petty?

Hmmmm, that sounds more like the current state of the GOP than the country

And then............there is the utterly brilliant............."reelecting the usurper in chief".....

Oy............ I'd ask you to Google the definition of usurper but.................why bother.

Heres an unsolicited tip for turning the GOP ship around..............be less stupid!!!

President Obama has wack jobs like Michael Moore who supoorts him hailed Hurricane Sandy and the demise of those in New Jersey and New York. He has the nerve to say that all of the hate is gone after this election....This guy is one big bag of "hatred" and a hypocrite...

Hey Neo, Liberals are NOT "celebrating America's demise" we are celebrating the GOP's demise! We are celebrating the Tea Party's demise. We are celebrating YOUR (eventual) demise Neo. No, actually none of that is true. What we are celebrating is the RISE of PROGRESSIVISM. It's not just Obama's re-election. Look around the other elections. A Gay senator was elected last night! Gay marriage was legalized in two more states. Marijuana was legalized in two more states. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Neo, it tolls for YOU and your kind. You are in a rapidly shrinking minority. The pendulum will NOT be swinging back your way either. After Obama serves out his term, your next President will be Hillary Clinton. If you can't wrap your little peabrain around that reality, I suggest you go dig yourself deeper into your survival bunker and assume the fetal position until 2024. By then your Republican party may have another shot, but it won't be the same white male old boys club you used to love. You won't even recognize it.

GOPers are sounding really really bitter on here...funny just a while back at the RNC they were laughing and joking and full of bluster and arrogance...I remember Marco Rubio smirking and saying "You think he's watching right now?" I also remember Clint Eastwood doing a really disrespectful skit with a chair"..."Hey Clint, you feel lucky, punk???" Looks like that seat really was taken after all huh? You see what hatred, negativity, racism and all around backwards, selfish thinking gets you???? smh sad...and now they are in the denial and angry phase of their 12 step rehab...the sooner you admit you have a real problem GOP, the sooner we can help you get on the road to recovery...all of your hate is a mental illness and eats away at your soul...pull yourselves together...times are changing...get on board or get left behind...oh wait...too late...

We must improve our progressive income tax system so that the wealthy pay proportionally more, and the poor pay little or nothing.

We must honestly identify problems with our campaign and election process, and then work to improve it for efficiency and accuracy.

Here an interesting result from yesterday's voting in California

Prop 38, which provided guaranteed revenue directly to California's schools, BUT involved a tax increase on all wage earners was soundly crushed, 75 to 25..

Prop 30, which provided significantly less to education, and only fed the general fund, BUT only rasied taxes on the rich. passed by a healthy margin.

When the rich continue the exodus from California, who is going to be left to pay the bills?

Obviously those who aren't in the top brackets have no interest in contributing much, including anything towards education. It's not a streach to suggest they are demanding the rich to pay for their childrens education, while ignoring that financial commitment themselves.